Winjit Design Hackathon – 2020

Paul rand once said, “To Design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit; it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse.”

Now that’s Design for you.

And Just like Philosophy, we all have our own idea of Design.

To Develop and nurture these ideas Winjit Organized a Global Design Hackathon – Hosted entirely on a Virtual Platform.

Over 200+ Designers and Design students from South Africa, USA, and India registered for the event.

The entire event was crafted in 5 phases: Understand, Define, Sketch, Prototype, and Decide.

We started the day with “Lightning Talks” from our Panel Speakers – Mr. Ajay Bohora (Ex-Cofounder MD & CEO, HDFC Credila), Mr. Sankarson Banerjee (CIO, RBL Bank India), Mr. Sudheer Prabhu (CTO, CIM Group) and our very own Mr. Ashwin Kandoi (Co-Founder of Winjit)

Their message reinforced the sheer belief that – Design is breathing visual air to a creative answer of a well-framed question.

The crux of the event was the problem statement that everyone was trying to solve in the given framework of the Design Sprint. The Challenge Statement was to “rethink and reimagine the bank statement or transaction statement.”

But the question in cynosure is – are bank statements relevant in today’s context? Do we just continue to use it because of the legacy behind it?

The nature of the Design Hackathon was such that – it was not limited to an intellectual discussion as an answer – it demanded the solution to be drafted in the form of an “Information Design”.As a trigger to help our participants unleash their creative juices, our Facilitators Swetank Gawade and Sonu Kanojiya ran “How Might We”, “Affinity Mapping” and “Jobs To Be Done” Sessions. This helped our participants channelize their creativity and focus on the targeted user’s needs.

The foundation of any Design-thinking method stresses on discovering the “job to be done”: adapted from the fields of ethnography and sociology. This method focuses on digging in “How can we make the end user experience more fulfilling?” because good art impresses but great Design inspires. To make the event more Immersive, the team had come up with a couple of ice-breakers and energizer activities.

The event’s gear changed when all the participants started Sketching and Prototyping their “Design” as an answer to our problem statement. They were constantly encouraged by our team to keep their end-user in mind at every stage of the Design process.

After everyone was ready with the Designs, we invited our esteemed guests in a different breakout room for the Idea Selection using the Dot Voting Method. Meanwhile the participants were sharing their experiences of attending a Virtual Hackathon.

The selected finalists were given an opportunity to present their ideas to our panelists, and we were surprised to see that some of the best Designs came from people who had no formal training in Design.

Our Winners were Kitso Sedumedi from South Africa (First Position), Janardhan Reddy from India (Second Position), and Yash Nikam from India (Third Position) received the Prizes and word of appreciation from our Judges. Total Cash Prize of Rs 10,000 was to be given to the winners

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It was enthralling to see the ardor with which all the participants showcased their potential – from conceptualizing the ideas to showcasing them in such a short time. In a power-packed span of 7 hours, they learnt new methods to tackle a Design problem, came up with unique solutions and expanded their Design network  – That sure leaves them with a story to tell.

As Lorinda Mamo once said, “Every great Design begins with an even better story”

Until the next Hack,

Team Winjit